


dreaming of reality

by suchasoftersin



Category: Electronic Dance Music RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-09
Updated: 2012-11-09
Packaged: 2017-11-18 06:58:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/558160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchasoftersin/pseuds/suchasoftersin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>when Sonny loses his memory, they make a game of "real or not real" to help him piece it back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dreaming of reality

**Author's Note:**

> based off of Peeta in Mockingjay.

“It’s like dreams but some of it seems real,” Sonny says, eyes still on the tv as he speaks. Joel wonders what it feels like not knowing if it’s your actual memories or just something you dreamed up. He’s not sure what to say so he stays silent, eyes on the tv but not actually paying attention. It’s quiet for a beat before Sonny continues, “you’re in them a lot.”

He’s only been released a couple of days, the doctors saying he was stable even if he lost some memory - they said it would come back in time. Sonny wanted to go home with Joel because Joel was the one person he remembered best. It was a battle with his parents that he easily won (later having the same fight with Rob). Joel couldn’t say no and had ordered a ticket for him back to Canada as well.

“Ask me about something and I’ll tell you if it’s real or not.” Joel’s still watching the tv flicker before them but his eyes are unseeing, not sure what’s happening with the show anymore. It goes quiet between them once more, the only sounds are the tv buzzing as background noise and their breathing. Somewhere in the flat, Meowingtons is hiding; he’d been excited to see Sonny, rubbing up against his leg until he realized something was wrong with his Sonny. He stared with big eyes, expecting to be scooped up into Sonny’s arms and offered treats but nothing happened. Once he realized something was different with this Sonny compared to the one that always comes to visit, he slinked away.

Sonny starts small, “my name is Sonny John Moore. Real or not real?”

“Real,” Joel answers, tone almost bored. Inside, he’s panicking about what will happen when he starts asking questions that Joel can’t answer.

“I’m adopted. Real or not real?” Sonny’s voice doesn’t waver like Joel is expecting, his eyes on the screen and his hands in his lap. The fact that he’s only wearing black now seems fitting, like he’s mourning the loss of his past even though he’s still working on piecing together what he can.

“Real.” Joel stands to get off of the couch as soon as it’s out of his mouth, feet moving over the hardwood floor easily. “Are you hungry? I’m going to make some food.” He doesn’t turn to look back at Sonny as he speaks to him, crossing the room to the kitchen bar. The truth is he’s not really hungry, he just needs to be doing something else as he answers Sonny’s questions.

Sonny doesn’t answer the question, not moving from the couch but looks up to Joel instead. He’s quiet for a moment as he watches the older man moving around the kitchen on a search for food. Sometimes he feels bad about being here, like a burden that Joel never complains about because he’s supposed to be a friend. “We met at a show. Real or not real?”

The question makes Joel freeze for some reason, face buried in the open fridge as he tries to find something that seems appealing to eat. He’s quiet for a second before he stands up straight and closes the fridge door, eyes falling to Sonny for the first time. The man’s staring up at him, face almost blank in a way that Joel’s never seen before. “Not real,” Joel finally answers, voice sounding loud in the silence that’s overtaken them, “we met in LA when I came to sign you. We’d only talked online before that.”

Sonny nods, taking the information in and trying to remember what Joel is telling him. He turns back to the tv, eyes unfocused as he thinks, and Joel takes it as his cue to stop staring as well. He moves further into the kitchen, opening the cupboards farthest away from the livingroom even though he knows there’s no food in them. Just like he knew, he only finds stray jars of peanut butter and a few half-empty boxes of Cheez-Its shoved in the back. He shuts the doors and moves back to the fridge, opening it again and scanning over everything even though he just checked a minute ago. A sandwhich isn’t bad, he decides as he reaches out for the mayo and digs around in a crowded drawer for lunch meat.

Sonny’s surprisingly quiet as Joel slathers the bread and skillfully piles it with meat and cheese, concentrating on it way harder than he should. Once he’s evened out the portions with his bread, he squishes the top piece on and haphazardly throws all the materials into the fridge, slamming it shut with his foot. He makes his way back into the livingroom, balancing the paper plate with the sandwhich, just to find the reason that Sonny’s gone quiet: cartoons. It seems that even with a loss of memory, some things must be implanted into his DNA - of course it’d be cartoons instead of something awesome.

“Porter and Anton. Real or not real?” It almost scares Joel when Sonny speaks suddenly, eyes still on the tv like he’s in a trance. Joel shifts to sit back down on the opposite end of the couch, setting his food in his lap while he tries to get comfortable. He doesn’t have to ask what Sonny means, he can guess by the tone. 

“Real.” He pretends not to notice how Sonny’s eyes shift to him as soon as he says it, focusing on his sandwhich instead. He picks it up, barely able to hold the contents together between the two pieces of bread, and takes a big bite. 

Sonny seems to not care that he has his mouth full because he asks, “when?”

Joel takes his time chewing, swallowing slowly and then wishing he’d gotten something to drink as well. Sonny’s still looking at him, his arms crossed at the wrist in his lap while the cartoons run around on the screen. “I dunno,” he answers honestly because he doesn’t actually know when it happened; it was a slow process that went all too fast because suddenly one day, they were just…together. “A while, I guess.” He makes a point of taking another bite as soon as he’s done answering, never looking up. 

Sonny seems sated now because he turns back to the tv and it falls silent all over again save for Joel messily eating. He turns back to the tv, becoming absorbed in the American cartoon that has somehow made it onto Canadian tv, a feat that doesn’t seem to be too hard these days. Sonny gets absorbed as he watches, the way his eyes get a little brighter and his body visibly relaxes make Joel feel at ease. If all it took was cartoons to calm the man, he should have turned on the tv as soon as possible instead of waiting a few days. 

They fall easily into routine: it’s quiet while they watch the show (which honesty confuses Joel because there’s a fucking blue platypus with a hat) and Sonny asks questions when it’s commercials. The sandwhich is long gone and a few of the episodes of this show have passed and Joel’s leaning against the arm of the couch, face pressed into his palm. Sonny’s just barely relaxed himself, leaning back into the couch and he’s finally stopped fiddling with his hands. Occasionally, he runs his hands over the shaved side of his head, like he’s trying to soothe himself or sort out his own thoughts.

“I always needed glasses,” Sonny asks almost as soon as the commercial starts, “real or not real?”

“Not real,” Joel answers, blinking slowly with his eyes still on the screen. He’s so fucking done with cartoons right now, he can’t handle another one of the lame plots by the scientist and the platypus foiling it easily. If he were that platypus, he’d find better things to do because as far as he can tell, that scientist seems really fucking lame. “Your eyes got worse when you got older.”

Then he asks one of the questions that Joel has been hoping to avoid: “I married Jon. Real or not real?”

“Um,” Joel hesitates, confused how he could answer that because it’s a complicated question with a just as complicated answer. He sits up straighter, letting his hand fall off the arm of the couch and into his own lap now. Suddenly, he knows how Sonny feels when he fidgets with his hands; it has to be a way of dealing with all the rushing thoughts in his head, a way to ground himself. 

His answer must not be fast enough because Sonny’s whole body goes tense, his voice has an edge that Joel’s never heard before, “real or not real?!”

“Real.” Sonny’s whole face falls, like it’s the answer he was dreading but not exactly expecting. He looks like he’s about to say something but Joel takes it as his cue to continue before the boy has a breakdown on his couch, “for show, not legally. But as far as the fans are concerned, you are actually married.” Joel can see the questions brewing behind Sonny’s eyes, the way he’s looking straight at him but not seeing him. “It was because he was covering for- uh, never mind.” The way Joel completely stops mid-sentence has him even more confused, his head reeling from the information. Joel knows it’s time to lay down or he’s going to have brains all over his walls. 

“Come on, Skrilly,” the nickname brings him momentarily out of his own mind, surfacing just long enough to see that Joel’s standing up. “Let’s go to bed.” Joel either doesn’t expect an answer or need one because he turns the tv off and heads for the stairs, expecting the smaller man to be following behind him. Sitting in the darkness by himself, Sonny can only hear the static of his own thoughts in his head and he decides it’s not a bad idea to try to put them to rest. He drags himself slowly up the stairs as well, being careful not to fall by holding onto the railing the whole way up.

Joel’s hovering near the door in the middle of the hallway, the room that Sonny has taken over since he got here. Sonny has noticed ever since the first night that Joel always seems to hate this part, leaving Sonny alone in the room while he goes to his own. He stops a few inches away from Joel, just inside the doorway so that he can say goodnight, looking up at him. “Goodnight,” he says, suddenly feeling very robotic but he’ll blame it on the jumble of emotions in his chest right now. 

Joel visibly swallows, eyes looking over Sonny’s face, “night goblin. I…” his voice fades out and Sonny tilts his head just barely, curious as to why. “I’ll see you in the morning, alright?” He nods now and is surprised when Joel reaches out, running his hand down his arm, dropping it right before he hits his hand. Joel turns and crosses the hall, disappearing in the open doorway of his own room. Sonny crawls into the bed, burying himself under the covers with all of his clothes still on.

Joel falls asleep easily, something that’s rare but it might just be from exhaustion. His dreams consist of Sonny and Sonny and Sonny and Sonny and Sonny…

He’s jerked out of sleep by an odd feeling, like a voice in the back of his brain is trying to tell him that he needs to be awake right now. Blinking, he realizes that Sonny’s kneeling on the bed next to him, eyes curious but starting to droop. Subconsciously, he reaches out for him, needing to touch to make sure he’s not a dream and Sonny doesn’t seem to mind when he wraps his hand loosely around his closest wrist. “What’s wrong?” Joel’s voice is scratchy, too tired (mentally and physically) to try and come up with a sarcastic, witty comment about why Sonny’s in his bed this late at night.

Sonny just breathes, “you love me. Real or not real?” 

Joel’s chest tightens and he’s not sure what emotion he’s feeling right now. He made a promise to himself that he wouldn’t say anything to Sonny, he didn’t want to cause even more mayhem for him. If they were supposed to be together, if it was written in the stars, then they would end up together without Joel trying to make it happen. He avoided saying any thing that would bring it up, trying to sidestep them without mentioning the couple in any way. With that last question, he’d almost broke his own rule but he had caught himself. Just barely.

“Real.” He doesn’t feel like that one needs any kind of explanation and apparently, it’s good enough for Sonny, too. The younger man moves, pulling away from Joel momentarily to find the edge of the blanket so he can crawl under it as well. With a body pressed against his own for the first time in a few weeks, Joel finally feels a little less lonely. Sonny buries his face into Joel’s neck the same way he always has and Joel wonders if it’s because he remembers or if it’s just a lucky guess.

“Ask me,” Sonny whispers, lips ghosting over the skin. It sends goosebumps up Joel’s spine.

“You love me,” Joel repeats Sonny’s words, “real or not real?”

Sonny doesn’t answer, just leaves a light kiss at the base of his throat.


End file.
